Physical

I had an appointment for a phyical today. The German insurance reqires a properly Germanic report on the state of my health, so that they do not have to rely on some sort of foreign analysis. The appointment was easy to get and the physician was punctual to within a couple of minutes. There were a other few differences too. In the US there is a scrupulous effort to avoid watching anyone undressing or dressing. That process is treated far more casually here, which certainly did not trouble me and saved a lot of waiting around time. The doctor also just asked my weight and height rather than shoving me onto a scale.

The oddest difference of all came at the end of the appointment. The insurance of course asked for blood samples. In the US, those would merely be mailed at some distant time, at least in my experience. Here they appologized that they would not be ready later that day and made an actual appoinment with the doctor for me to talk about what the results mean. They were not assuming any abnormality. It was just part of a more personable service. This could be easy to get used to.